Quote Originally Posted by OC Richard View Post
Give the dazzling variety of cantle designs seen in The Highlander Of Scotland, dating to nearly the same time, and given that the same cantle design appears over and over in New York in the 1850s and 1860s, yet not elsewhere, the suggestion presents itself that a single original might have served as the inspiration for a number of New York sporrans, or that New Yorkers were purchasing sporrans from a single maker, perhaps local, perhaps back in Scotland.
I agree wholeheartedly, OC Richard, and speculated as much in my first posting-
Quote Originally Posted by artificer View Post
I'm not a Civil War historian, but my guess would be someone had a Scottish sporran of similar design that ended up being the prototype for the 79th,
and then, because that was the style that was most commonly seen (having been produced in at least 4 companies worth of volume) it sort of became the
de facto "sporran shape" for the New York area.
My point of contention would be pointing directly to the Muirhead sporran as the originator of the 79ths design.
Not that it isn't a possibility, but without establishing WHERE Muirhead came into the US (was it Boston, NYC?, further south?) and when/if he was ever in the NY area it seems like
folly to assign the design DIRECTLY to his piece.

What we DO have is direct-line evidence that this general cantle shape WAS made in Scotland (at least the one of them ), even if it doesn't appear in photographs IN Scotland at the time.

Given that we know many commercial Scottish makers made plenty of pieces off the same pattern it's not out of the realm of possibility to assume that there was more than one other sporran in a similar shape.
The potential 'gotcha' exception would be if the Muirhead piece were made as a one-off by someone who was commissioned to make a one-off piece for Mr. Muirhead (or his father/grandfather, etc) and
then this maker never made another. Odds aren't great for that particular scenario, but it IS possible.

I'd be reluctant to assign the 79ths design DIRECTLY on Muirhead's sporran without some corroborating facts about Mr. Muirheads possibly being in New York.

Given the oddities of the rest of the 79th's domestically made gear I'd assume that the sporrans were made locally as well rather than imported.

ith: